What Would Mike Hurst Do for BP?

This morning, Attorney General Jim Hood announced that Mississippi will receive 2.2 billion dollars from BP's disastrous Deepwater Horizon spill. Along with the tragic loss of lives, the spill wreaked havoc on our gulf coast's environment, fishing, and tourism industries.

In his statement, Hood said:

"We remain committed to ensuring that our coast counties and cities are included in any settlement and treated fairly. I am pleased to say we are upholding our promise. The size and scope of this settlement is the result of a successful partnership of all the gulf states and our state agencies. Together, we held BP accountable for the damage it caused."

But Republican Mike Hurst has different plans for companies like BP; he doesn't want them to face any consequences. How do we know? He'll tell you in his stump speech:

BP to ask US Supreme Court to let them off the hook; Scalia's son's firm to do the asking

*** Please excuse all typos, as I am posting this from a mobile device. The source for this post is http://www.wwltv.com/news/Appeals-Court-denies-BPs-effort-to-keep-claims-payments-stopped-260815371.html ***

A nightmare scenario has developed for the United States Supreme Court. In a case that will easily be as controverial as Bush V. Gore, Justice Antonin Scalia will be asked by his son's law firm to let BP avoid making payments under the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill economic settlement agreement.

By way of background, in the wake of the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP sought to buy its way out of thousands upon thousands of lawsuits brought under the federal Oil Pollution Act. BP knew that defense of many of those cases would be nigh on impossible, and would take literally decades and untold billions of dollars in legal fees. The beleaguered business owners of the Gulf Coast states, who'd seen their businesses throttled by BP's massive pollution, knew that protracted litigation would not serve their interests, either. After all, when your seafood restaurant in Jackson faces both a decline in sales due to a concern over safety and an increase in price for inferior replacement items, the prospect of money 5 years down the line is cold comfort. 

Enter the class action settlement of all Business Economic Loss (BEL) claims. 

Through thousands of hours of negotiations, and a false start with the Gulf Coast Claims Center, the class plaintiffs and BP entered into a binding contract regarding settlement, and sought approval from Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana, the judge to whom all oil spill cases had been assigned. 

All was well for a short time. Claims were being paid, and BP appeared to be doing what it could to right their wrong. Then BP changed their tune. 

Citing instances in which businesses allegedly not harmed by the spill were receiving settlement checks, BP began asking the court to let them out of the settlement agreement. At first, everyone sort if rolled their eyes. BP had not only agreed to the settlement program and the formula by which eligibility for settlement payments would be determined; they'd helped create the formula and specifically asked Judge Barbier to approve it. 

But then a three judge panel from the 5th Circuit said that maybe the accounting rules needed to be clarified. (Cash-basis vs. accrual, etc.) And a stay was ordered to sort that out, meaning that there would be no further payments under the settlement until further order of the court. 

Well, last week, BP completely struck out at the 5th Circuit. (The 5th Circuit is the intermediate appellate court that hears appeals from all federal courts in TX, LA, and MS, including Judge Barbier's court.). Essentially, the 5th Circuit held that BP was going to have to honor its word and make the payments under the settlement, just like they'd said they would.  They also held that the mandate would issue on May 27th. 

The stay, however, remained untouched until yesterday, when the 5th Circuit ruled that the stay would be over come June 3rd. 

Here's where the nightmare begins for our Supreme Court, and frankly, our concept for the rule if law. 

The United States Supreme Court is often asked to weigh in on injunctive matters. (Think mass murderer's last second appeal to the Supreme Court before his execution.) In order to effectively handle such matters, the Supreme Court has divvied up the Circuit Courts amongst themselves. Justice Antonin Scalia presides over these sorts of thing for the 5th Circuit, meaning that when BP asks the United States Supreme Court to extend the stay and continue to withhold settlement payments to Gulf Coast business owners, Scalia will be in charge. 

Now, those of you who pay close attention to this sort of thing know already that that's bad news. Scalia is nothing if not a friend of business. (And by business, I mean Fortune 500 megacorporations, not you, local construction company, seafood distributor, or clothing store.) But it's worse than that. You see, Justice Scalia's son, Eugene, is a partner at the law firm Gibson Dunn. And Gibson Dunn is representing BP. 

So when BP asks the Supreme Court to continue the stay and to deprive thousands of business owners of relief, they will be asking Justice Scalia through his own son. 

If the American public has any faith left in its highest court, it will likely be destroyed by Scalia unless he recuses himself from this case. I'm not holding my breath. 

Attorney General Jim Hood sues BP over oil spill

Just shy of the 3 year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, the State of Mississippi has filed suit against BP in both state and federal court. Here's a quote from a press release from Attorney General Jim Hood:

Attorney General Jim Hood stated, “I have worked very hard to get BP to discuss a reasonable settlement. BP refused to negotiate, forcing the state to take this action. BP would not even agree to waive the statute of limitations while we negotiated, which could have prevented the State from having to file suit and saved both them and the taxpayers a lot of money paying lawyers and fighting in the courts.”

You can read the full press release at: http://agjimhood.com/index.php/press/releases/attorney_general_files_suit_against_bp_and_others_for_damages

Attorney General Jim Hood wins battle against Kenneth Feinberg to keep oil spill-related litigation in state court

The story in a nutshell is that Kenneth Feinberg, the administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility has been attempting to dodge a subpoena from Attorney General Hood's office that would require Feinberg to produce documents that show how they handle oil spill damages claims.  Hood filed the subpoena in state court, and Feinberg had the matter removed to federal court.  U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves ruled today that the removal was improper, and sent the matter back to state court, where presumably Feinberg will be forced to comply with the subpoena.

Here's the story from Legal Newsline.

Bipartisan group of Coast legislators question BP claims process

Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of legislators from the Mississippi Gulf Coast sent a letter to Trudy Allen of the law firm of Watkins, Ludlam, Winter, & Stennis, who is assisting BP in the handling of its oil spill claims process. Miffed at the "extremely abbreviated public comment period" for the changes to the payment methodology used by BP's Gulf Coast Claims Facility, the legislators requested an opportunity to be heard. They will meet with representatives of the GCCF tomorrow.

Also of concern to the legislators is the adoption of a suspect report by a Texas A&M marine biologist who has determined that the Gulf will be back to normal by 2012. In the wake of reports of numerous dead baby dolphins along the Mississippi Coast, that report looks as if it may be a touch ambitious.